Square-pallet chain pump
Bomba de cadena de paletas (longgu che)
- Date
- c. 186 CE · confidence medium
- Place
- Luoyang, Henan, China
- Credited to
- Bi Lan (attribution); Han peasants
- People
- 👤 Bi Lan150–189
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
An endless chain of wooden paddles that drags water up an inclined channel, driven by pedal, by animals or by wind. It was the main irrigation and drainage device of Chinese rice paddies for two millennia.
Bi Lan built one to water the streets of Luoyang in 186; Wang Chong may allude to it earlier, around the year 80.
What it led to
- irrigation of terraced rice paddies
- drainage of polders in the lower Yangtze